


Ten Years After

by kamja



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Eventual Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamja/pseuds/kamja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toma and Jun always find time to catch up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Years After

It was Italian this time, Toma’s pick. Jun adjusted his collar in the rearview mirror as he stopped at a red light. He’d barely enough time to change after filming HanaDan, and afterwards he was still due for a magazine interview. Everything was back to back today, and Jun was pretty close to running on fumes. Yet the second Tuesday of every month was sacred in a way, and had been for the past six years. Jun made room in his schedule for his dinners with Toma, even if it often felt as impossible as parting the sea. He knew Toma did the same thing every month. 

Hell if he’ll be the first one to fail at it. 

Toma was already there, seated in a booth tucked away near the back. That was what every responsible maitre d’ did for celebrity diners; no one returned to a place where they couldn’t eat in peace and quiet. His back was to the door, giving Jun a chance to observe his friend for a few moments before coming up to take the seat opposite. He’d cut his hair since they last saw each other. It framed the back of his neck very nicely. 

“Hey, have you been waiting long?”

Toma looked up, smiling. “Not at all. Check out the specials they have here…”

*

“She wasn’t even a good lay, in the end,” Jun took another gulp of beer. 

Toma pushed a glass of water towards Jun across the coffee table. They were in Jun’s apartment. Relationships never made the tabloids if the idols were smart, and part of being smart was not being at a bar when talking about them. 

“Well, at least it’s all done. Didn’t she try to screen your calls?” This was surely beginning to look like one of those nights that had no end in sight. Toma didn’t mind, though. Jun played host to his breakups too. 

“Yeah, hell, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that.”

After a good few minutes of silence, Toma was starting to think that maybe Jun had passed out. He looked towards the linen closet, where the extra blankets were kept, and thought about getting up. Jun stirred suddenly beside him. 

“You’re a good friend, Toma.”

*

“I have something for you,” Toma said over hurried mouthfuls of curry. He could snatch only twenty minutes this month, since he was in the middle of filming Majo Saiban. 

“What is it?” Jun was in the middle of Smile, but he had already finished for the day.

Toma fished around in his pocket and produced a name tag. Jun needed to take just one look before he started laughing. 

“Hey, this is mine!” There was one day, back when Arashi was just an idea on a piece of paper and when M.A.I.N. was what they called themselves, when the four of them were sent out to interview people on the street for Tanabata. A part of their outfit included these name tags. 

“Yeah, the design made them hard to reuse, so they let us have them,” Toma pointed to the gaudy star pattern. “You came over to my house afterwards to play games, and you forgot it. Somehow or another we thought my mom accidentally threw it away, remember, but it turns out it was put in some box that we found just last week in a closet.” 

“Some things never change,” Jun turned the name tag around in his hands. The sparkly foil decoration was still like new. “It’s not worth doing in Johnny’s if you can’t make it flashy.”

They both laughed and then looked at the clock at the same time, and Toma was already five minutes late so he said a hurried goodbye. 

“I’m glad we haven’t changed either,” Toma said as he turned to go. 

“You’re the only one,” Jun said as he walked out towards his car. The unfinished statement hung in the air, but no one was around to ask him to finish it out loud. Because of one thing or another, most of the juniors from that time scattered to focus on work. It wasn’t as if they didn’t ever meet up, but on the whole it was not nearly as regular as the second Tuesday of every month. He didn’t even eat with his own bandmates with such regularity. 

The second Tuesday of every month. 

*

For the first time in ten years, they missed a dinner. Thanks to his manager, Jun’s schedule was packed so tight that it could float in Tokyo Bay. He hardly had time to get from one place to another. 

As a result, his phone experienced a barrage of text messages from Toma to make up for it. Jun replied to them between takes and backstage in the green rooms. 

“You’re unusually attentive to your mails today,” Nino’s observation came with a sly smile at one corner of his mouth. A staffer came in to whisk Nino away before Jun could reply.

He looked at his phone and wondered why that was so accurate.

*

“I wonder,” Jun paused and phrased the next part carefully. “If there is something right in front of me that I haven’t been seeing.”

Toma looked up from his menu. Knowing someone since childhood had its advantages; he already had some idea of where this might be going. Nevertheless, it wasn’t good to jump the gun. “Like what?”

There was one day back then, when M.A.I.N. was what they did yesterday and Arashi was what three of them were doing tomorrow, when the jimusho put four careers in motion. But today, it was up to them to start the next stage of their lives.


End file.
